“We’ll need to learn how high the degradation is” – Alpine’s Ciaron Pilbeam

On the back of last weekend’s Styrian Grand Prix, this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix again at the Red Bull Ring brings the Alpine F1 Team another opportunity to add to their slowly increasing constructor’s tally, as they battle for sixth place.

Fernando Alonso after finishing ninth last time out, will experience racing at the same venue for a consecutive weekend for the first ever time in his long Formula 1 career. On the other side of the Alpine F1 Team, Esteban Ocon is hoping to bounce back after a highly disappointing Styrian Grand Prix, after finishing well outside of the points.

This weekend’s grand prix however does have a significant difference to last weekend, as the softest compound of Pirelli’s tyre range the C5, will be available for the first time ever at the circuit. Alpine Chief Race Engineer Ciaron Pilbeam knows just how important it is to gather as much information on the tyre’s performance as possible.

“We have the C5 compound this week, which we’ve never had in Austria before, so that brings a bit of an unknown. At a normal race weekend, the Friday plan is fairly standard and the information you need to gather doesn’t vary much.

“That is different this weekend as we already have information on the C3 and C4 and now we need to look at the C5. It will have more grip than the C4 and probably higher degradation as well. We’ll need to learn how high the degradation is and whether that pushes you towards a two-stop race strategy.”